538 - Where Should I Start If I’ve Never Invested in Thought Leadership Before?
Starting thought leadership without a strategy is a waste of time. This episode explains how to align your message with business goals, build credibility, and ensure your efforts drive real results. Discover the first step to creating a lasting impact.
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Where Should I Start If I’ve Never Invested in Thought Leadership Before?
For many business leaders, the first step into thought leadership feels overwhelming. With so much noise on LinkedIn and other platforms, it’s tempting just to start posting and hope something resonates. However, without a strategy, thought leadership becomes a vanity exercise, not a business driver.
1. Begin with clarity of purpose.
Before creating any content, define why thought leadership matters to you and your business. What is the purpose? What outcomes are you seeking? Is it visibility, credibility, lead generation, or industry influence? Without clarity, the effort will lack direction.
2. Link your personal voice to business goals.
Thought leadership is not just about personal expression; it’s about alignment. Your message must reflect your values and simultaneously reinforce your company's vision. When done well, your leadership presence strengthens both personal credibility and corporate trust.
3. Treat thought leadership as a business investment.
Just like any other initiative, thought leadership requires a return on investment. Measure success not in likes or follower counts, but in business outcomes, including client acquisition, partnerships, influence, and long-term positioning.
4. Build systems to scale.
Once purpose and alignment are clear, create processes that make thought leadership sustainable. Systems ensure consistency, and consistency builds authority. With the proper structure, you stop wasting time and start compounding results.
Final Thought:
Starting thought leadership is not about jumping on social media and sharing whatever comes to mind. It’s about developing a strategy that aligns your values with your business and your industry. With clarity, alignment, and systems in place, thought leadership stops being an extra task; it becomes a force multiplier for your influence and your business.
Highlights:
00:00 Introduction: Starting Your Thought Leadership Journey
00:08 Building a Strategy: The Foundation of Thought Leadership
00:20 The Importance of a Clear Purpose
00:32 Linking Strategy to Personal and Business Success
00:54 Common Mistakes in Thought Leadership
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Transcript:
A question I got the other day from A CEO, where should I start? I've never done anything and barely posted on LinkedIn. For me, start with the strategy. You need to understand what's the purpose, what's the reason, what's the return of invest, of being a thought leader? If you don't have an answer to that.
Then it's not worth it. Definitely because if you just show up for the sake of showing up, it doesn't make any difference and you don't have a clear perspective of it. So build a strategy that is linked to you as a person and linked to your business and your industry. If you build that strategy, then you will be successful because then you build everything else that comes afterwards to support you and your business to be successful.